


In, Eight Count

by Oricalcon



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy Reference, past pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:12:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oricalcon/pseuds/Oricalcon
Summary: “What the hell do you-” the old soldier began, cut off with with a snarl and the pin-prick feeling of Reaper digging his claws into his lower body.“I’m the one asking the questions here, Jack. Now,” Reaper growled as he placed both hands on his stomach, the gesture completely lost on him. “Where is she.”





	In, Eight Count

In, eight count. … Seven, eight. Out, eight count. … Six, seven, eight.

Soldier:76 kept himself occupied in the stark grey interrogation chamber. Armed with only his black thermal shirt and combat pants, tightly bound to a sturdy metal chair, he focused on breathing and flexing exercises.

In, tense the muscles of his right hand, eight count.

Out, relax.

In, his forearm, out, relax.

The exercise traveled up his arm, across his body to the extent of his control, an artificially induced ripple of muscle to prevent him from cramping, to keep his muscles warm. It served to keep him wired and engaged, constantly ready to react to a lapse in his captor’s security, ready to escape from the situation he’d ended up in. That it also kept his worried thoughts marginally distracted was a small benefit.

He’d been in the room restrained to near immobility, arms behind his back and legs buckled to the chair legs but head and neck mercifully free, for what felt like days; it had only been at most seven hours. After the first few minutes of desperate panic and struggle, in which the soldier had nearly dislocated both of his shoulders, he’d fallen to digging through his memories of old training and anti-interrogation protocol to prepare himself for what would inevitably come. His captor knew who he once was; had called him by the name of a dead man in confrontations past.

There was no doubt in Soldier:76’s mind that Reaper would be seeking information that only Jack Morrison had access to.

If the mercenary’s past victims were a basis for his current situation, the old soldier would need all of the psychological tools at his disposal that he could possibly dredge from his previous life.

When three uneventful hours had passed, the old soldier began to grow anxious; a cold sweat prickled at the back of his neck. Why was he here? Why had no one come to antagonize him yet? Surely the theatrical Reaper, with all of the doom and dramatics of a Saturday morning cartoon villain, would not be able to resist gloating and terrorizing the man who had become a thorn in his side from mission to mission. But no, nothing had yet occurred.

When four more hours had passed with no change in state, Soldier:76 began to run a through  myriad of different scenarios in his head; perhaps Reaper had gone out again, and was held up in another mission for Talon. Perhaps he was waiting for his beneficiaries to send someone more ...  skilled, with more finesse, to deal with the former strike commander. Or perhaps, against all odds, the mercenary had forgotten about Soldier:76, or more likely voluntarily left him there, locked away in the dank, dim, cold and stark room, to never again bother the Reaper.

The bound man’s gut had churned with terror at that last prospect; he could die here, alone and relatively uninjured, a death inflicted not by wounds or torture but by starvation and dehydration. Not the death of a soldier fighting to fix past mistakes, but of a washed-up failure locked away for his crimes.

He had no doubt this train of thought, this sudden flip of fear in the pit of his belly would change the scent of the room; it was already filled to the brim with his own smell, the suppressors he’d pasted  to his neck and wrists long expired. Soldier:76 hoped the thick, biological cocktail of pain, anxiety, and anger would override the fear, but he knew the scent of an omega’s unease would cut like a hot knife through butter, would stick to his skin like the moisture of a summer night back home. It would give him away in more ways than one.

In, eight count. … Seven, eight. Out, eight count. … Six, seven, eight; he began trying, unsuccessfully, to center himself.

At half past the seven hour mark, as Soldier:76  tried his bindings and surveyed the room to find some means of freeing himself for the umpteenth time, he heard it. The telltale hollow clank of a heavy ironclad boot on a cement floor. He strained, despite his enhanced senses, to separate the number of footsteps approaching through the ominous echo. As the noise grew closer, the man nearly sagged in relief before tensing again, rolling his sore muscles at the distinction of only one entity.

And if the weight behind the approach was any means of distinguishing it, the individual nearing his room was no doubt Reaper.

Far quicker than expected, the locking mechanism on the single entrance clicked, and the door soundlessly slid open. As the captive soldier predicted, the wraith stood framed in the doorway. Reaper seemed content not to enter, but to analyze the room, masked head gently cocked to the side, and Soldier:76 could see the mercenary’s chest quickly flutter in stuttered succession as he scented the cell. After what the soldier would have dubbed as “long enough to be appropriately dramatic”, the black-clad terrorist stepped inside,the flat door behind him sliding shut and locking again with a sound of threatening promise.

“Was beginning to think you forgot about me.” The soldier tried to keep his face impassive, his tone of voice emotionless, yet he could not help but wrinkle his nose some at the scent of blood, gunpowder, and ozone that enveloped his senses almost oppressively as the door closed behind his captor. He could taste it on his tongue, coating the roof of his mouth as he spoke; he’d known it before, had scented it on the battlefield, had tasted it when locked in hand to hand combat with his foe; but he had never been confined in with the scent in such close quarters. The Reaper was unmistakably the alpha he knew, and Soldier:76’s instincts recoiled painfully at that prospect.

Reaper closed the distance between them with three long strides, silently inspecting his captive with the sightless gaze that made Soldier:76’s hair stand on end. He said nothing, circling around his the chair like a bird of prey marking it’s kill. The former Strike Commander resisted the urge to crane his neck when Reaper left his field of view, refusing to give his enemy the pleasure of knowing how unsettled he was. As Reaper passed around his right shoulder, Soldier jumped at the feeling of a clawed gauntlet placing itself on the juncture between his shoulder and neck. He flinched away as far as he could, his hind brain screaming at him to remove the sharp objects from his neck, yet this only seemed to encourage the mercenary. Wordlessly, the hand slid up the column of flesh, resting with a strangely gentle intimacy over the scent point at the base of his jaw before continuing its journey up.

Finally, Reaper stepped back into his field of vision, both gloves gripping the soldier’s uncovered face, tipping and turning the man’s head as though he were inspecting a chicken at a state fair.

“You really did get old.” Reaper rumbled, more of a thoughtful murmur to himself than to the man in front of him.

The silver-haired man snarled in response, as though broken from a spell; like lightning, Soldier:76 lunged forward, cracking the front of his skull against the mask that had drifted far too close. His captor roared in response, furious but barely fazed from the Soldier’s desperate attack, and locked a clawed hand around the his captive’s throat. With inhuman strength, Reaper picked Soldier:76 up, chair and body, before flinging him into the wall on the far side the small room. Soldier grunted with the impact, landing hard on his side.

Reaper stomped loudly to where the soldier had landed. “You can play _nice_ , Jack, and tell me what I deserve to know, or you can play hard, and I can throw you around this cell like the sack of shit you are.”  He picked the soldier up, and set him upright.

“Fuck you.” Jack spat venomously. “You know who I am, you know that pushing me around like some two-bit lackey  won’t get you shit.You know I’m better than that.” He squared his shoulders, glaring defiantly into the mask as he was placed back into a sitting position.

“Oh Jack, I know,” his captor purred, and Jack has to resist the urge to gag as a scent of fury and familiar possessiveness floods his senses through the ever present fog of gore and carbon, “It's almost cute how confident you are, after all these years.” He bent forward, taking a deep breath of the soldier’s own cocktail of emotions, no doubt relishing in his pain. “But no one’s looking for you anymore. You’re here, with me, and we have all the time in the world to work things out.”

“Oh yeah? Whats Talon want this time, huh? Who’s dick do you have jammed down your throat now?” Jack growled, trying to present his scent and body language as intimidating despite his position, “going to go running back to them the minute you get what you want? Going to let them do to me what they did to Amélie? It won’t work you sick fuck, I’ll bite my tongue off and bleed out before I give you _anything_ ever again.” He struggled fruitlessly against his bindings as though trying to get the point across, baring his teeth and rumbling angrily deep in his chest. It might have even been threatening, even coming from an omega, if it was presented to anyone else.  


“No Talon this time, Jackie-boy.” Reaper leaned in closer, almost whispering, but far enough away so as not to have a repeat of last time. “Like I said. It’s just you and me. As it always should have been.” A gout of black mist spewed from the gap in the mask, curling around Jack’s face, forcing him to turn away and cough.

Reaper chuckled darkly, almost distractedly, and reached forward to lightly traced his claws over the soldier’s straining pectorals. “Come on Jack,” the hand traveled lower, smoothing down the muscle of his abs before settling flat over his belly. “We used to tell each other _everything_.”

The bound man collected himself, his mind working at a hundred miles a minute to try to understand what Gabriel, now Reaper, wanted. Talon was what Jack could deal with; he could deal with their repeated attempts to pull information out of him using sloppy interrogation techniques he eventually escaped; he could deal with the bugs in hideouts and deals gone bad. But Jack didn’t know what Gabriel wanted, and hadn’t known for a long time.

He hated that he once knew the man in front of him. Hated that he pretends Gabriel and Reaper aren’t the same. Hated that this was the man he used to have at his back, would put his life down for and who would put his life down for his own at a moment’s notice. Hated that at one point, he called this terrorist his mate. His abdomen and stomach tried to curl away from his former friend’s touch, but made no progress from his restrained position.

“What the hell do you-” the old soldier began, cut off with with a snarl and the pin-prick feeling of Reaper digging his claws into his lower body.

“I’m the one asking the questions here, Jack. Now,” Reaper growled as he placed both hands on his stomach, the gesture completely lost on him. “Where is she.”

The soldier stared, bewildered at the movements of his enemy and the question presented to him. “Who?” he asks lamely.

Claws dug into his abdomen again. “ **_Where is she_ ** _._ ” Reaper hissed, the air of command weighting the question, and the scent of possessive fury and _loss_ engulfs him.

Jack forced himself to swallow a confused whine, omega instincts screaming at him to answer the demand of the alpha he once willingly obeyed. Years of training against other alphas was at his side; he wouldn’t answer if he had it, but at the moment he had no idea _what_ the man was asking. The soldier gritted his teeth. “I don’t know who or what you’re talking about, Reaper.” He tried to buck forward, to dislodge the other man’s touch, “ _Get your fucking hands off of me!_ ”  
The movement had little effect; instead, Reaper leaned forward, bristling with anger and smoke, the leather of his suit shifting and coiling as if alive. “ **_Where is our child._ ** ”

The soldier, who had been poised to re-introduce his former mate’s mask to the front of his skull, deflated like pricked balloon as the color drained from his already pale face. The realization of what Reaper asked hit hard.

“There’s no tactical advantage to you knowing the answer to that question, Reaper”, the soldier manages to choke, trying to sink into the metal chair. “Leave her out of this.” 

In, eight count. … Seven, eight. Out, eight count. … Six, seven, eight; he tries to breath. It’s unsuccessful.

The anguish had been stirred, not unlike mud at the bottom of a river, and Jack internally cursed himself. He had been unable to hide his reaction, unable to bluff against a question that had come from so far out of left field. It wasn’t something he had thought about in years; wasn’t something he was able to defend himself against. A raw wound hastily covered, but never truly healed. Reaper leaned forward further into Jack’s space, one hand around his neck and the other still stroking his front.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Reaper purrs softly in a way Jack assumed to be attempting to sooth, “I didn’t know before. I found Angela’s old medical files three months ago.” Reaper paused, as though reminiscing. “Talon won’t know, I won’t tell them. This is just you and me, Jack. Tell me where she is.” This time, as the mercenary leaned in, he scents him true; his mask almost pressed against his neck, holding Jack still to prevent further struggling. Another flood of emotion and smoke dissipates from Reaper, and Jack tastes something cloyingly familiar in the back of his throat; he’d almost gotten used to the other man’s new scent, and this change in the aroma was as plain as day.

Jack’s body trembled in response to the words, the position, the question, and the scent; but it was not a tremble of fear for his life or another’s. His body shook with rage, his teeth grit and ground in fury and anguish, his muscles tensed against his restraints as memories he’d buried far away in a tiny grave come flooding back.

“You want to know so bad? Where she is? _You want to know what happened to her?_ ” Jack spat, acidic pain coiling in his gut under Reaper’s hand. He doesn’t try to hide his scent or physical language anymore, he lets his anguish wash over the other man like a toxic wave, hoping that despite their time apart, the man formerly known as Gabriel Reyes could still pick up on the nuances of his body.

Reaper pulled back, his hands retreating, confusion evident in the line of his shoulders and the tilt of his mask, staring Jack down. “I think I have as much of a right to know where she is as any. She’s my daughter as much as yours.” He spits.

Jack barks a laugh, a loud, pained, startling noise that has even the self-named death god flinching in surprise. “I guess she is,” Jack forced out, and the vice gripping the lump in his throat is far tighter than the hand Reaper had around it moments before, “and just like Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, she’s dead too.”

Reaper stands at his full height, “You’re lying,” he hisses. Jack can see the smoke and inky darkness roiling beneath the exposed skin of his arms, underneath the layers of his coat, like a bucket of eels fighting to be free.

“I was trapped under that rubble from the chest down for almost two days before I managed to dig my way out, _Gabriel,_ and the first thing I did when i was free was look for _you_ .” Jack sucks in a pained, unsteady breath. “No food, no water, broken pelvis, nearly crushed my spine and legs, burns all over my body,” he chokes back a sob, head falling to stare down at his lap, not realizing tears had begun to form at the corners of his eyes. “I knew she was gone before I was even free; I couldn’t ... _feel_ her anymore when I woke up. I couldn’t really feel much though; the doctors called that shock.” Jack looked up, surprised to see his ex-mate more of a human-shaped mass of frothing, oily carbon than Reaper; but he couldn’t stop; it was like throwing up. He had to keep going, get it all out, until it was done.

He felt dizzy. An eight count breath couldn’t bring him down from this.

“So I tried to find you. My mate. The only person I thought I could trust after all of it. And you know what I found? A corpse, with six inches of rebar through his chest and the lower half of him missing. I wanted to take your body with me, at least, but I had to get out and away from the UN. From Talon. From that whole mess. When I finally got medical attention, they removed her body, and I buried her in Indiana.”

Jack closed his eyes as his mate exploded into a whirlwind of red eyes and black fury.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've actually written in eight years. It's unbeta'd, a heavy topic, and the only reason I'm posting it is because my friends threatened to give me a swirlie if I didn't. Please leave a comment, if you're interested!


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